Christmas in the United States means millions of dollars could be made selling ugly Christmas sweaters. A holiday tradition in bad taste has now become an industry - with online sales and seasonal pop-up store fronts.
Roza Kazan reports on one Chicago man, who hopes to cash in on the nation's growing appetite for holiday kitsch.
From university basketball games to office parties and holiday runs across the country to the Tonight Show-America's most popular late night talkfest.
The ugly Christmas sweater has gone mainstream. "This is one of our classic designs." A few years ago, Joey Dunne, a bar manager in Chicago, won a party contest with an ugly Christmas sweater he made himself.
Joseph Dunne, the owner of Christmas Sweater Depot said:"I got a lot of compliments, people were like: 'Hey, maybe you can make me a sweater for my next party, I'll pay you.'"
And so he did, first selling what he calls his "embellished" sweaters online. And now running his holiday-season pop-up store for the fifth consecutive year.
Dunne said:"So we add garland around just some of the stockings just to give it a little more bling."
Dunne still makes most of his sweaters himself with the help of friends and family. But revenue has more than doubled and the new business partner aims high:
"We want to generate more revenue, if that means, getting more stores in the Chicagoland area, great,"
"We want to increase our website presence to where we can actually ship internationally," said Michael Aguilar, business partner of Christmas Sweater Depot.
Garland, lights and Star Wars stockings, Dunne says there's no limit to getting ugly!
The store owners say the key is to establish the customer's level of comfort with ugliness. Something fairly conservative like this. Or go full on ugly with bells and whistles"
But ugly doesn't come cheap. The sweaters range from $25 to $60 and customers seem happy to pay.
Ryan Chung, the customer said:"Definitely, I mean, especially because it's got with the lights too, this is all custom made. They did it by hand,"
From Amazon to Alibaba to pro sports teams, ugly sweaters are raking in millions. But Dunne isn't afraid of competition.
"The big box companies manufacture thousands of the same sweater. We don't manufacturer two of the same sweater," said Dunne. And so Dunne says he'll keep on "turning up the volume of holiday cheer."
